Several years ago, when I was working as a hospital physician in Florida, a patient’s wife said something that has always stuck with me. The service was very busy on that day, and I was doing my best to get through everybody in a timely manner. I was with a patient whose wife was at the bedside, beside herself with worry. I was focused on the main presenting complaint, but …
Make the patient feel like the absolute center of your world
Being a doctor is about as much of a social job as one can get. Even though computers and healthcare information technology mean that physicians are now spending a disproportionately large amount of their time staring at their computer screens, there’s no getting around the importance of good old face-to-face interactions. That’s also what’s valued by your patients. In this time of great upheaval in healthcare, everything has …
5 communication mistakes physicians should avoid
There are many different theories out there about the direction that health care should go, and what we need to be doing in the future.
Passions run high, and peoples’ opinions vary wildly. It’s frequently difficult to find agreement on anything. There is, however, one universal truth I’ve found about the everyday practice of medicine, and what constitutes great medical care for any individual in any health care system. Having worked …
Good communication is at the core of all good medical care. Here are 3 examples.
Following my latest article on health care information technology, and how tragic the situation has become for physicians, I received a lot of correspondence. As always with articles that express physicians’ frustrations with the current batch of IT systems, there’s typically a lot of sympathy and agreement (although I believe that just nodding our heads and saying how bad a situation is, doesn’t really mean that …
5 ways to fix health IT immediately
Illness is a disappointing and frustrating time. Nothing could be worse than a sickness which suddenly jolts you out of your daily routine, and forces you to confront a harsh new reality. That’s something that physicians should always remember as they go about their hectic work days. Doctors see patients at extremely low points in their lives.
The vast majority of physicians, and indeed all other health care professionals, are among …
You’re disappointed with your health care. Here are 5 reasons why.
I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the suboptimal nature of electronic medical records and what we need to be doing better.
At their best, health care information technology systems can make finding patient medical data unbelievably quick and easy. However, at their worst, they take up an unacceptable amount of physicians’ time and also dumb down medicine, reducing our patients’ stories to rows of meaningless tick …
Why health IT is such a tragedy
I recently attended the annual Society of Hospital Medicine conference in Las Vegas.
As a proud hospital medicine doctor, this organization has grown exponentially over the last decade, and thousands of hospital physicians from across the nation descended on the city for a few days of great learning and networking opportunities. However, away from the conference, this being Vegas, there had to be some time for fun as well.
On Saturday evening, …
How the $8 bottle of water in Las Vegas is a health care issue
The world of health care continues to change at a breathtaking pace. For reasons too long to go into during a short article, there’s been a huge shift of power away from individual doctors and patients, and towards administrators and big corporations. Health care in its most raw primary form used to be about Dr. Johnson’s small office around the corner,which would serve you and your …
What’s wrong with health care leaders today
As the world digested the events that unfolded aboard United Airlines Flight 3411 at Chicago O’Hare, and watched the horrific video of Dr. David Dao being forcibly dragged off the plane that was supposed to be taking him home, social media was red with rage at United Airlines. People vowed never to fly with them, customers ripped up their loyalty cards, and United’s stock fell over a billion dollars in …
United Airlines and Dr. Dao: Who we should be really mad at
It is not something that is taught enough in medical school, but practicing physicians quickly realize that in this business: Communication is everything. The reality of health care is that you can be the worst physician in the world clinically (not that it’s something desirable to be), display great interpersonal skills, communicating well with your patients — and they will do absolutely anything you say and put you up on …
3 communication mistakes doctors make. And how to fix them.
Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is something that every physician up and down the country will be familiar with. For anyone non-medical reading this, it’s the process by which physician orders are now placed in nearly all U.S. hospitals. As little as five years ago, most hospitals were still using pen and paper to place medication, laboratory, radiology and all other orders. Being able to do this now by computer …
This is what CPOE apps should look like
Last week I finally got around to watching La La Land. As a fan of musicals, I had wanted to see it for quite some time, and before I stepped into the theater, I didn’t know what it was about nor what kinds of reviews it had been getting. Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you haven’t seen it and intend to watch it (and I’ve never told anybody before …
What can doctors learn from La La Land?
I grew up in the United Kingdom and have friends and family who rely on the National Health Service. I’ve written previously how I believe that, despite the idea of a completely free at the point of use health care system sounding very noble — and there are certainly many great things about the NHS — it’s not a model that has been copied in any other country.
As someone who …
How to fix the NHS. And what the United States can learn from it.
Being in a hospital is a scary and frightening time, and it’s easy for those of us at the frontlines — doctors and nurses — to forget that as we go about our busy work days. Patients are at a very low point in their lives and will remember everything about their hospital stay, including all their interactions, for a very long time.
As someone with a keen interest in improving …
In the hospital? Here are 7 things you must keep in mind.
A few years ago, I was in a position where I was quickly going down the route of hospital administration. I thought it was interesting at first, but realized it wasn’t quite my cup of tea, at least in the circumstances that I was exposed to. What I didn’t like about it was the feeling that I was losing touch with the front lines. And wherever my career takes me, …
The top 3 questions hospital administrators ask
One of the topics I write most about and have also done a considerable amount of consulting work on is improving and optimizing health care information technology. I hate to say it, but after a few years of doing this, I’m starting to despair a little from what I’m seeing. It’s a question I never thought I’d ask: But will health care IT ever really get to where it should …
3 reasons why health care IT will always be terrible
Another year passed by, and I was going to write about my wishes for the New Year as a hospital doctor. But then, remembered that I did something very similar a couple of years ago. I went back and read over my wishes and found that they are identical to my wishes now! That’s not to say we haven’t made some great progress but — as anyone in health care …
My top 5 wishes for health care in 2017
Dear Dr. Price,
Congratulations on your upcoming appointment as the new Health and Human Services Secretary under President Trump. As a physician myself, it’s great to know that a fellow physician will head up the agency. I’m sure you understand too, having been a practicing orthopedic surgeon, how disheartening and frustrating it is to have non-clinical “experts” making key decisions about health care.
I’m sure you’ve also seen the news about how …
Dear Dr. Price: 5 suggestions for the new Health and Human Services secretary
Being sick is a horrible enough time without having to worry about how much it’s going to cost you. Unfortunately, the United States is unique among developed nations in not ensuring that the populace has a safety net that will protect them against exorbitant personal health care expenses. It’s a terrible thing to have to deal with as a physician. I went to medical school to learn how to take …
3 ways you can advocate for better health care
Since finishing my residency several years ago, I’ve worked in almost every type of hospital up and down the East Coast, from big urban academic medical centers to more rural community outposts. Although I primarily practice hospital medicine, working with both smaller private groups and being a hospital employee, I empathize a lot with my independent practice colleagues and brethren. I almost certainly would have gone down the route of …
Stop pushing doctors out of practice!
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
